Were the Newburgh 4 Really Out to Blow Up Synagogues? A Defendant Finally Speaks Out.
Was David Williams IV a terrorist? Or was he just out to make an easy score by scamming the government’s informant?
By Graham Rayman | Village Voice | March 02, 2011
On March 24, David Williams IV and three other Newburgh, New York, men face possible life prison sentences for plotting to blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and to shoot down military airplanes at Stewart Airport.
The Newburgh 4—ringleader James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen—were found guilty in a six-week trial based largely on the work of an FBI informant, Shahed Hussain, who posed as a wealthy Pakistani businessman with ties to an overseas terror group as part of an elaborate government sting operation.
The trial showed that Cromitie had made anti-Semitic and anti-American statements, that he concocted attack plans with Hussain, that the four defendants met to view an anti-aircraft missile, and that they planted what they had been told were bombs at two Riverdale synagogues on May 20, 2009.
The evidence, which included secretly taped conversations, painted a picture of four men who wanted to strike a blow for radical Islam. After the verdict, one juror told reporters, “We considered what they did a serious crime.”
Defense lawyers tried unsuccessfully to convince the jury that the government had actually entrapped the four, but none of the defendants testified on their own or gave interviews.
Until now. David Williams tells the Voice what he hasn’t said publicly before: that he went along with the bomb plot because he was trying to cheat Hussain, the government’s informant, out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Even as they were being secretly recorded and trailed by the government, Williams says he and Cromitie were working on their own plot to take Hussain’s cash.
In other words, they wanted to scam a guy who, it turned out, was scamming them.
“We all said lots of things only to either impress [Hussain] or make him think he found a band of real killers. We never meant one word of what we said,” Williams wrote in a recent letter to a friend.
“That’s what the whole thing was about,” Williams tells the Voice from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where he is being held pending sentencing. He and Cromitie were plotting their own swindle, and both were clear nothing violent would happen. “Cromitie promised me nothing was going to happen.”
But plenty has happened to Williams and his fellow defendants. After turning down plea deals for significantly shorter sentences, they rolled the dice by going to trial and keeping their own mouths shut, hoping their defense attorneys could convince a jury that Hussain was an unreliable informant who had manufactured and relentlessly pushed a terror plot by plying them with cash and gifts—the FBI had even pulled strings to keep Williams out of a larceny case that would have had him behind bars when the plot was scheduled to go down. (Both federal prosecutors and defense lawyers declined to comment for this story.)
Would the jury have been more sympathetic if the defendants had instead portrayed themselves as greedy criminals looking for an easy score? It’s too late now to find out: Williams and the others are appealing their convictions, but for the moment they remain officially labeled home-grown terrorists who wanted to blow up Jewish people in the Bronx. And next month they could very well be sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives. … Full article
Egyptian protesters brutally attacked
Press TV – March 6, 2011
Plainclothes forces have attacked hundreds of Egyptian demonstrators with knives and rocks outside the State Security Agency headquarters in Cairo.
Around 500 protesters, demanding the closure of the secret police headquarters, were met with violence by security forces wearing civilian clothing on Sunday, AFP reported.
To stop protesters from storming the building — where documents were reportedly being destroyed that proved human rights violations — the army fired warning shots and used batons to disperse the crowd, witnesses said.
Earlier, in a similar incident, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of the State Security Agency in Alexandria to protest human rights abuses, which stemmed from ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly three decades of state of emergency rule.
The gathering also turned violent when security forces opened fire on protesters, injuring at least three.
State security agents have been blamed for the violence during massive protests in Liberation Square to overthrow Mubarak.
On Saturday, former interior minister in charge of the secret services under Mubarak — General Habib al-Adly — was summoned to court and charged with money-laundering and corruption. He has denied all the charges.
Egypt’s former Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmy has also been summoned to court over accusations of selling gas to Israel and six European states for prices lower than international ones.
Fahmy claims he only carried out the orders made by Mubarak.
Egyptians marching to Gaza border
Press TV – March 6, 2011
Hundreds of Egyptians are marching to the country’s border with the Gaza Strip to demand that it be opened. They are currently in Al Arish, about 50 kilometers from Rafah.
Press TV correspondent Roshan Muhammed Salih is also in Al Arish, where he spoke to several of the Egyptian activists, who told him they plan to hold a demonstration on the border on Sunday, with the aim of entering the besieged territory.
Egypt has imposed a blockade on Gaza since the democratically elected Hamas government took control of the territory in 2007. Gaza is also blockaded by Israel — a situation that international agencies and non-governmental groups say has led to a humanitarian crisis.
The initiative to open the Gaza border is the brainchild of the Tahrir4Gaza campaign, whose organizers say they want to test the extent to which Egypt has really changed since its revolution.
Ahmed El-Assy, the main campaign organizer, told Press TV, “The Mubarak regime collaborated with Israel to keep the Palestinians weak, but now he’s been overthrown, so there’s no need to maintain the status quo.”
El-Assy added that several days ago he was detained by the Egyptian authorities for launching the campaign. He said they tried to dissuade him from marching on the border, arguing that the timing was wrong.
“There’s a lot of fear and intimidation, but we know that the Palestinian issue is an important one for Egyptians, and we need to keep the momentum up following the successful revolution,” he stated.
A group of Egyptians and foreigners set out from Cairo on Saturday morning heading toward the Rafah border. They had to pass through at least twelve military checkpoints and were detained at one of them for two hours. Eventually they were allowed to proceed to Al Arish, 50 kilometers from Rafah. Upon arriving in Al Arish, the locals welcomed them with open arms and promised to accompany them to Rafah on Sunday.
Another member of the Tahrir4Gaza campaign told Press TV, “If we are refused entry to Gaza, we are thinking about setting up a permanent camp at the border. This is a test of whether this really is the new Egypt, or whether the old Egypt remains.”
Israeli Air Force Launches New Media Campaign to Gain International Approval
By Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center | March 6, 2011
The Communications Unit of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) is launching a new media program targeting the English-speaking world in order to promote their military activities and gain international approval.
Israeli air force attacking the Gaza Strip in January 2009
International New Media program will include a constantly updated website, Facebook page and Twitter feed, according to the news site Arutz 7, and will be under the auspices of IAF Spokesperson Lt. Col. Assaf Librati.
The program will include staff 20 writers, photographers, videographers and editors who support the entire IAF Communications Unit.
Explaining the reasoning behind the new campaign, Lt. Col. Librati said, “The Israeli Air Force is a center of profound research, international cooperation, immense diversity, and advanced technology within the Israel Defense Forces. We believe that we have much to share with the world about who we are, what we do, our capabilities, and our ongoing participation in humanitarian operations around the world.”
It is unclear at this time as to whether the IAF will also be including Twitter updates on its regular attacks on the Gaza Strip and it’s training in the occupied West Bank.
“We see this as a force multiplier and an important step forward in communicating about Israel, the IDF, and the IAF directly with stakeholders around the world,” Librati stated.
The Israel Defense Forces already has a very active spokesperson unit, operating daily with 500 media outlets and 2500 journalists and civilian agents working to promote their activities worldwide.
The country actively uses social media like Facebook for public relations particularly during its controversial attacks, such as the attacks on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, the fatal naval assault on the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy.
In 2009 the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that NIS 600,000 of the year’s budget would be devoted to the establishment of a professional team of talkback writers who will flood websites throughout the world with pro-Israeli messages.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has since established team of students and discharged soldiers who work around the clock writing pro-Israeli talkbacks on internet sites throughout the world, and participate in discussions concerning Israel in international blogs and in sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
“The internet is an arena in every way in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must act here or otherwise we lose,” said Ilan Shturman, Deputy Director of the Department of Public Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time the project was established.
“During ‘Operation Cast Lead’ we turned to Jewish communities abroad and with their assistance enlisted several thousand volunteers, to whom Israeli volunteers joined. We sent them background and public relations material and sent them to represent the Israeli perspective in the news websites on the internet,” said Shturman. “Our target audience then was the European Left, which was not friendly towards the government policy. We therefore began to get involved in discussions on blogs in England, Spain and Germany, very hostile environments.”
As Ilan Shurtman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “Our goal is to penetrate into the world in which these discussions are being held, and in which news and video-clips are sent onwards to blogs, social networks and news sites of all sites. We are going to bring to these places a pro-Israeli voice.”
Israeli troops fire on women marking International Women’s Day, serious injuries reported
Stun grenade fired at woman’s face
Ma’an – March 6, 2011
RAMALLAH — Israeli forces violently shut down a demonstration led by women north of Jerusalem on Saturday, organizers said.
Border police fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the protesters marking International Women’s Day at the Qalandiya checkpoint.
The event was organized by minister of social affairs Majeda Al-Masri, a leader in the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and union officials from Hebron and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
It was not clear how many people were hurt, but union official Nehad Al-Akhras said a Swedish activist was seriously injured by a stun grenade which struck her in the face. She was hospitalized in Ramallah.
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Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Join us in calling for the immediate release of all Palestinian women political prisoners.
Petition: We, the undersigned members of worldwide civil society, are marking International Women’s Day on 8 March 2011 by calling on the Israeli authorities to immediately release all Palestinian women political prisoners and detainees from Israeli jails, including women in administrative detention. We condemn the cruel and discriminatory treatment that Palestinian women prisoners and detainees are subjected to during their arrest and interrogation and in prison, including sexual harassment, psychological and physical punishment and humiliation, and deprivation of gender-sensitive healthcare. This is in contravention of international law and must stop immediately.
To sign the petition, please go here.